| What a tangle | 
| What a strangling knot to be caught in | 
| To be exiled here | 
| To be stuck in Berlin with Vienna so near | 
| Yet so far from the Emperor’s ear | 
| What a strange and impossible sum | 
| To be old while to still be so young | 
| To have sung before speaking a word | 
| To be heard | 
| To be hailed | 
| Then to fail | 
| To be done | 
| To love but to be so naive | 
| To trust and to be so deceived | 
| To mourn, forlorn, to be torn from you | 
| Scorned for another who suffers no grief | 
| To curse God, seeking lightning | 
| And to still be ignored | 
| To hide in this room, now too rich to afford | 
| To hear armies of creditors bang at the door | 
| Always yelling for more | 
| And to have nothing to sell that could help | 
| Except for the Steinway that sits in the corner | 
| For Arthur it all came too easily | 
| To learn the scales in every key | 
| To play the etudes and the suites | 
| The nocturnes and The Fantaisie | 
| To master the sonatas, minuets, and symphonies | 
| To seek the truth fits and starts | 
| To strike the middle F like it’s an arrow through the heart | 
| To wing the right hand like a dove (the peaceful flutter of a dove) | 
| And with left a violent shove (some moments will demand a shove) | 
| To needle gently yet relentless with a steady foot upon the pedal | 
| And to clench the iron first inside the velvet glove | 
| To learn to whisper and to scream | 
| (the whisper justifies the scream) | 
| To let each yearning finger breathe | 
| (no, nothing lives unless it breathes) | 
| To burn, to worship, to mislead | 
| To pose a question with a pinky on a key | 
| To flee, to fight, to bleed | 
| To float in air | 
| Nothing solid underneath | 
| To rap those heavy knuckles on the gate to heaven til there’s nothing to | 
| Achieve, but— | 
| To go retrieve the length of cable hidden in the cabinet | 
| To metamorphasize the twisted rope unto an alphabet | 
| To lay the lazy C upon the shabby wooden floor to rest | 
| To send the end across the top and bend the C into an S | 
| To curve the tail beneath the S to turn the tangle to a B | 
| To hug the wretched root around the fibers suffocatingly | 
| To wrap again to wrap again to give the coil seven loops | 
| To penetrate the yawning hoop | 
| To tug the loose appendage through | 
| To yank the knot until it’s ready for the job it’s got to do | 
| To toss the braid above the ceiling beam and to affix the noose | 
| To bid adieu to all of you until there’s nothing left to do but | 
| Climb the chair | 
| To cinch the collar | 
| Find the edge | 
| To step into the air |